Bad Dream, or Ghost of Winter Future?

First off, it is Friday and I posted the next "chapter" of the Fox Tale on DeviantArt:

If this is the firs one you are reading, by all means please stop and read the first one first, then proceed in order.

Part One: → Fox at First Sight ←
Part Two: → Foxy Lady ←
Part Three: → Still a Fox ←
And the new one:

Part Four: → Fellowship of the Fox ←

So I had this weird dream a few days ago.  In the dream, I had promised this /girl/ the year before that I would marry her.  Everyone was supporting me on this, but I had never met the girl before making the promise, or since.  The dream took place on the day of the wedding - mostly at the church where my TUX was being tailored.  Her friends made up the wedding party but a couple of them were friends of mine - sort of like distant cousins or something - as well.  I tried to convince everyone that this was a mistake because, well for one thing, I am a girl, and another was that we really did not even know each other.  Everyone was telling me that everything was taken care of and that I did not need to worry about anything.  I kind of had the impression that I was making some sort of sacrifice my doing this, but it was not obvious in the dream.  Her father was really, really, really rich, but I was not doing it for the money.  And I knew the girl, despite having grown up really rich, was not being spoiled or just used to getting her way with things, but rather it had this sense of this being the first thing she really wanted and was finally getting it. (I ought to mention that despite this being a wedding, there was nothing sexual about this at all.  There was not any plan to physically consummate the wedding or anything like that.)

One of the prevailing emotions of the dream was one of being out of control.  Imaging like being in a car accident, and in the emergency room at the hospital and lots of people were fussing over you and assuring you that everything was okay - truth or not - and that you did not need to worry about anything.  Actually, come to think of it, it was a lot like that... something (not car accident) I have been through enough for it to have played though in my dream.  And I always associate Hospitals with things for all people, rich and poor, but run by really rich people - kind of like the father of the bride in the dream.

Goodness, I think I just figured out the dream - I was just reliving a trip to the ER.  I mean, there was rush and fuss to get me there.  Once there, I was being "tailor" dressed.  It was probably a lady Dr that I was not familiar with - there was that time when... and there was that... yeah, I remember now - and the hospital was her "dad."  It really does fit in my head anyway.

Okay, well, Anyhoo;

Take Care

Elqueue

Another Friday, Another Fiction Post

Not much to say here.  I have a load of cooking to do, so I will get right to the point

A Fox Tale:
Part 3: Still a Fox

If you have not already, please start at the beginning:
Part 1: Fox at First Sight

Part Two: Foxy Lady

Not a real big surprise.  It is a Friday, and I did say, somewhere, that I was going to try to upload a new "chapterette" every Friday. Another breadcrumb along this story.

It is a sort of dramatic, coming-of-age thing, but I hope is has my familiar style about it keeping it fun.  Except for this one part later down the path.

Oh, well, here are the links:
Today's upload: Part Two: Foxy Lady

And the starting point: Part One: Fox at First Sight

It burns my cookies

Okay, well really, there are a number of things what really burn my cookies (Other than having the oven too hot or forget to start the timer.)

It makes me nuts when people put their flag up where it does not belong and move the scope of the real, root issue.

There was a story years ago where a woman was beaten, raped, stabbed, all repeatedly before being dumped and left for dead. The assailant was acquitted.
The woman had agreed to performing sex acts in exchange for drugs while at a night club, left with the guy, changed her mind on the way to his house (after using some of his drugs), and then he attacked her.

Okay, she was dressed "like a prostitute"
She promised to have sex with him
She used drugs, then did not "pay up"

All those things are bad, questionable, whatever.  People all over started raising issues for decency and anti-drug campaigns. Whatever.  What this boils down to is that nothing, nowhere, nohow excuses his behavior.

There is no instrument anywhere in humanity that says "Well, it is okay to do that because..."

Nothing.

So today I was sent this thing about "anti-bullying policies" that do not factor in LGBT.  Why should they?  Why should they have to itemize the things for which a person could be bullied.

Before there is a lot of yelling, let me explain.

A, "C beat me up."
B, "That is terrible, A.  Why did you do that, C?"
C, "Because I felt like it."
B, "C, I am appalled. There will be severe retribution."

Or:

A, "C beat me up."

B, "That is terrible, A.  Why did you do that, C?"

C, "Because A is gay."

B, "Oh, well, fine then."

The story was that there was a gay boy beaten in school, it was caught on camera video, no one helped, and the assailant was punished.  The argument is that it is a hate crime and the punishment was insufficient.  What we do not know is if the punishment is or is not consistent with other hate-crime punishments.

See what I mean?  There is no need to distinguish a person's characteristics when talking about protection from abuse.  Hate crime is hate crime and the story was presented with insufficient perspective.

If there was some sense of self defense like, "he was beating me up and I fought back" or "I felt threatened and I had no other recourse for protection," and I am sure, plenty of other reasons where it may be justified for one person to use physical force against another person, but it is never okay to do it because they have different beliefs, look different, or for their sexual orientation.

It is never okay to rape.  That is just.... no, never.

So, this.... junk-mail.... is not getting my support because I am not just jumping on a LGBT wagon and making a fuss.  I would not get on a race or religion wagon either under these conditions.

People, just get over yourselves, put down your banner, quit "occupying" and deal with the real issues.

It also irks me when the law gets in the way of justice.

Just an update

So it has been some time since I had made any updates on DeviantArt.  Last night, or this morning, whenever, I posted one of those "about me" things.  Rather self indulgent, if I do say so, but reading other's is a sort of guilty pleasure of mine, so yeah, I "give back" a bit.

Anywho, Here is the link to the Journal.

Yes, I have been writing a bit more, but it is rather slow going.  I hope to have some more short stories - or rather installments of the existing stories - posted in my gallery soon.

I am currently pulling a software update.  It takes a while.  So I am getting a bit chatty here.  Oh well.

It has been snowing more lately.  This is a good thing, for me, and I am really enjoying it.  It seems to be improving my mood a bit.

Dad has been cooking more for me.  I mean, yeah, he has been having to play more of the chef role for a while, but I have been making more of an effort to get involved and give recipe input.

I have re-read the Harry Potter books, enjoying them as much as ever.  Watching Thor took a lot out of me and I do not thing I want to go through that again to see the latest HP films.  (No, I still have not seen 6 or 7.1 & 7.2)

But now I am getting into State of Fear by Michael Crichton, an author whose works I do appreciate quite a lot.

I think that is about it for now.

Take care-

Elqueue

Arch Linux Server Install

This is not so much like a lot of other reviews/reports I have done in the past, just a sort of quick and dirty, because unless someone out there wants to discuss any of this, I am kind of done with this. That is to say, I
As many of you are well aware, I am a tried and true Linux Mint advocate.  However, as some of you are aware, I believe in using the right tool for the job.

I have been using Zen Server for my file server for years and years. It has been good to me. It is still good. I may well use it again at some point. I like it a lot. No hard feelings.
Recently, however, Dad and I decided it was time to build something better.
So, new, good hardware should mean that we can run whatever distro we want, right? It can take it. But why waste cycles that could be going to BOINC? Why have a fancy DE on a system that may as well be headless?

Okay, well it will not really be headless, but it will be mostly used as such.

So I wanted to get down to basics and Dad and I liked the looks of Arch Linux.

Chose NET for the installation method.  Basically, you can chose a “core” and then do an update, or do the NET install and just get the update during the install.

Got the net ISO on USB stick and booted.
Logged in and started the setup.
Chose my install source (FTP)
Then it prompted me to start up networking.  Cool.
Next was setting the date/time configuration
- region and timezone
- UTC
- Check that it is correct, then back to the main menu
Setup file system.  Choosing manual so I can define my /home volume
Picking packages. done
Installing packages. Well now here is where I am really biting the bullet with this, so to speak. This is going out on a rather slow connection.  This (NET Install) is not really the recommended method, in this day and age, given the connectivity that I have because I will have to wait for the packages to be FTP’d to me.  As mentioned earlier, I could have downloaded the CD-install method, but then, what would be the point, really.  I can wait.  I am not in a hurry.  I have a book.
Oh, mercy, the package installation failed because of a connection timeout. Gee, what a surprise there, eh?  Clever little installer just picked right back up from there.
Now on to the configuration, daemons, bootloader.
Note: This text-based installation was cool. It had just enough pre-done, without having to go back in and remove a bunch of stuff, but still be very user friendly, as long as the user does not need to ask a bunch of questions. -- Or, if they do have to ask a bunch of questions, they ought to have another computer on the standby.

Reboot and setup my user. Done
Add sudo. Done
Installing xorg... little trouble getting the packages... Hmmm... Okay, just need to remove that failing mirror from my mirror list.
Configing video, X and fonts. Done.

Here is gets interesting. I did a bit of pre-install planning and whatnot. I have (I thing) not really been too naive to know that there is a lot about *nix that I do not know.  There is plenty. I knew there were lot of different desktop environments and window managers and stuff, but I had not understood the relationship between them. For the most part, I have dealt with systems that came with something (gnome, KDE, xfce, lxde) and I could install another, or whatever. And I would, and that would determine what sort of gui tools I would have, or what lib’s would load, etc. So, I had played around with some bare WM’s. It was really cool. I had (on another machine) tested out Window Maker, and Fluxbox (which I had played around with before, but now understand it better) and several others before settling on Openbox.  Openbox is perfect for this. Window Maker was my second choice. When you run Openbox, all you get is your apps. There is nothing else in the way. Also, running just a wm and not a de, it is natural to run at init3 unless there is something in there you need to do.

So, set up the proxys, nfs, rsync and all our LAMP stuff.

The verdict? ArchLinux is great for this kind of down to basics server.  

The installation was easy, but precise.
The configuration was straight forward.
So far, the maint and upkeep seems simple enough. I am rather impressed.

And, ArchLinux is not just good for servers. It is good for basically any stripped, purpose built system. Take a netbook, for example. Cloud computing, etc. One could build a basic wardriver with just your wireless tools and chromium, and run all the google app you need. Or, build a media machine with an HDMI to the telly. Watch all the web content, pop in your blu-ray, music through the home theater.  Yeah, I know, you can do all that stuff with other systems, but then, where is the fun in that.  (Yes, you can build it up for a great, multipurpose, general use system, but it you are doing that, unless you are just starting from the ground up for the fun of it, there are other out-of-the-box options that get you there faster in a just-because-you-can-doesn’t-mean-you-should-start-from-scratch sort of way. Linux Mint, for example.)

Granted, I am not giving up my Linux Mint Debian with LXDE for my day-to-day usage.

Book Report: Matched by Ally Condie

Matched by Ally Condie

Well, the writing is nice, characters have some depth and are more or less believable, the concept a little tired and the plot is maybe a bit thin.

This is Lewis Lowery meets Scott Westerfield in a H.G. Wells sort of way.

In general, it is not a problem for me when concepts in one work are similar in nature, or influenced by, or even out-right borrowed from other works.  All the better when a new twist or different spin on the same scenario give life and excitement to an old interpretation. Sometimes though, I just feel like there is a lack of originality. All-in-all though, for having thrown all these into a blender, what came out was nicely done here, Ms Condie. Nicely done.

So lets take a look-see at what we have here.

Protagonists:

Cassia Reyes

Xander Carrow

Ky Markham

Well, those are the /main/ ones, I suppose.

Antagonists:

The Society.  Ha! Go figure.

So, in this world, ambiguously far in the future, the society (aka government) is in charge of everything.  Where we live, what we eat, what we do, who we marry, etc.  There are only few approved songs they are aloud to hear, only a few approved poems, paintings, etc - everything else was destroyed.  Matched starts out with Cassia readying herself for her matching ceremony.  Well, apparently, the norm is for people to be matched with someone from elsewhere in the ... from another place.  The rare is to be paired up with a local person, but shocking to be match with your childhood best friend.  What are the odds, right?  So, then there is a... glitch that implies to Cassia that she may have been alternatively matched to someone else from her childhood.  Coincidence? I put no stock in coincidence.

I am not giving away much there actually - you get almost that much from the jacket.  Well, except for the my-opinion part.

The thing about how well written this is, is that Condie provides a tremendous amount of insight into their world, culture etc. in the very beginning while also letting us know a lot about Cassia without boring us to tears. (You listening to this Ms Meyer?)

Ever read The Giver?  Or Uglies? ... or The Time Machine?  The idea is that in this society, everyone is calm and relaxed because the governing collective is always looking out for everyone and never does anything wrong.  Everyone agrees that it is good, or risk being wished away into a cornfield.  That was a subtle Twilight Zone reference, hopefully setting the mood.  As we the reader ride along with Cassia, we collectively start to realize that more and more people are apparently looking out for themselves for fear of the society, not trust in it.  They are careful what they say and do because they do not want to stand out.  Everyone is careful of offending anyone because their culture dictates that it is not nice to offend anyone, true, but doing so has repercussions greater than simply hurting someone's feeling.

She sees that there is one commonality that makes people rebel.  One thing fires individuals up to fight the system they fear, and that is when injustice occurs against someone they love.

There are three pills that everyone is supposed to have.

1) Nutrition supplement. This is to help them out if they ever are lost/stranded or whatever where they are in a position where they could suffer if not for adequate nutrition. I spent a lot of time thinking about what, within the scope of their perfect little society, would ever put them in need of such things.  I mean, to the point that the Eloi - er, sorry, the members of the society - are required to always have one with them at all times.  I pondered the psychological impact of such a thing and here is what I came up with: If They provide my food, three times a day, and I can get food no other way, nutrition is so important that if I ever fail to come to the feeding trough when called, I need an emergency supplement, then I my life is completely dependent on Them. And, they care enough about me that they give me the means to survive if I would ever to make such a mistake.  We do take a bit of a trip into the nutrition processing center and I half expected Morlocks running the place.

2) Sedative. Like somewhere between a super Alprazolam and a short-term chemical lobotomy. Again, something that /should/ not be needed in a utopia.

3) The enigmatic RED PILL.  They are always supposed to have them, but only supposed to take them when told to do so.  Some fear it is a suicide pill, some have no imagination, others... who knows.  Well, I know, but I am withholding /some/ spoilers so I am not going to tell you is like like the MIB Flashie-thing.  Oh, wait.

I am at a point now where I feel if I continue, I will:

- give away too much

- convey an inaccurate picture of my assessment of the book

- drive away potential readers, or something like that.

I have a number of issues - technical ones - that are too big to ignore, but not big enough to ruin the book.  Here is an example: They have /lost/ the ability to write.  They can type, but not write.  And not just in the sense "gee, this would be so much easier to type and my handwriting will be hard to read" but in the "I know the words to a lost, forbidden poem. I cannot type them, because then the Morlocks will see it! If only there was a way I could put these words onto something!" sort of way. Now, I understand that this was a plot device to get some things done.  And for one thing, it is a real sense of rebellion to break such a serious rule as to learn something the the Society did not teach.  But seriously, they know how to draw, they /could/ just draw the characters.  It is little things like that that do not sit well with me - and not just in a not-how-I-would-have-done-it sort of way.

One thing that was not conveyed - or I missed it, or whatever - was a sense of scale.  Sometimes it feels like they talk in the scope of cities and boroughs, other times, it seems like towns and divisions, or states and countries.  It bugged me, but I am over it now.

All in all, a good book that I am happy to have read - and eagerly await the next part.  Now that the base is set, I am hoping book two will be more... substantial.  I think this book could easily become more popular most.  That does not sound right... I hypothetically score it 10 of 15, but would understand that the populous gives it more of a 12 to 13 of 15.